Yes, Cody, I'm a hypocrite. The recent blog entries have been far too long.

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As I was sitting, or rather lying there, in the dentist's chair, I started to wonder. What would my life be like if I were a dental hygienist? What would my blog entries say?

While I was thinking about this, my new hygienist tore at my gums with her pointy scraper thing. She's nowhere near as gentle as my old hygienist, who got pregnant and disappeared. My thoughts were interrupted again when the new hygienist sprayed my arm with water before managing to aim it at my mouth to give me a rinse.

What if people just stare at you all day? I wondered. That would be so creepy.

Some fluoride splashed on my face and on the glasses they made me wear for eye protection, which was suddenly making a lot of sense.

Tuesday, June 28, I began. I was playing the role of a hygienist writing a blog entry. This man kept staring at me while I cleaned his teeth. It was so creepy! I opened my eyes and looked at my hygienist, who was concentrating on making my gums bleed with her heavy-handed flossing techniques. I only managed to stare at her for about three seconds before shutting them again. It just felt rude and kind of weird.

Wednesday, June 29 - So many talkers today! Everybody was just chatty, chatty, chatty! It must be because the sun is out. It makes each patient visit that much longer and I ended up running behind by almost 40 minutes. I came close to squirting one person in the eye just to shut her up! But she had on the protective goggles, so it just would have splashed me anyhow.

I was beginning to dislike the Swedish Chef dentistry techniques. My gums were almost certainly bleeding, my face was sprayed with water and fluoride, though my arm was dry by this point. In fact, I wasn't all that sure I liked her. My mouth hurt.

I wonder if anybody ever yells at her. What if I just started shouting? What if I yelped in pain like a puppy? Would she stop?

Suddenly, she was done. She gently dabbed the fluoride off my face with a piece of gauze and said, "Everything looks really good." I don't know whether it was the unexpected moment of tenderness or the fabulous news, but I changed my mind: I liked her immensely.

While we waited for my dentist to come in and check things out, I asked her if it was weird to work so close with people but not be able to talk to them. "Does anybody ever just stare at you?" I asked. "That would be creepy." She said she didn't notice if anybody did and agreed that it would be strange.

On the way home, I realized that was a mean thing to do to Swedish Chef Hygienist. What if she starts looking at their eyes instead of their teeth and ends up spraying even more stuff all over her patients? What if people actually do stare at her and whereas she was blissfully unaware of it before, she now notices and it drives her crazy?

Hopefully, she's nowhere near as neurotic as me and she forgot about the whole thing as soon as the water and fluoride started to splatter all over her next patient.

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Slowly but surely, a new trend is making itself apparent, eking out the old majority in my closet at a glacial pace: clothes that fit. It's astonishing, I know. It came as a big shock to me, too. I even have a few items that show off the curves I don't have (seriously, I'm shaped way more like Gilligan than Ginger*). Looking through my closet lately, I have been slightly astonished at the amount of fabric required for, say, some of my old t-shirts. Sure, I was a few pounds heavier back in college, but a) that was 9 years ago and b) I wasn't that much heavier. Still, I liked to wear everything big. I think it started when I was a teenager and I didn't want to draw attention to, you know, the curves I don't have. It's all so post-ironic. I wore baggy clothes and slouched a lot. (The slouching also helped me to actually hear what my friends were saying.)

At any rate, I think it's time to get rid of some of the old bagginess by dumping it off at the neighborhood Good Will. As a gesture toward that, I went out and bought six or seven tops this weekend, all of which fit me. This is huge. This is exciting stuff. Mostly, it helps to have a champagne brunch before trying things on, and to shop with Sydney, who is the best personal shopper a girl could have. Crystal helped me pick out several items, too, including a t-shirt with a picture of a googly-eyed crab that says "I am shellfish". Because it's funny, that's why. Also, it fits.

*Is this ambiguity we can live with? I think it's a dangling participle, because you can interpret that sentence as "I'm shaped way more like Gilligan than I am shaped like Ginger", OR you can interpret it as "I'm shaped way more like Gilligan than Ginger is shaped like Gilligan". However, I don't like the way "I'm shaped way more like Gilligan than like Ginger" sounds for some reason. Over-analyzing? Me?

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Back in the late 1990's, I was working at an insurance company. My job at the time (after moving up from the peon data entry position that I swore was sucking my soul out through my fingertips) was to work on projects, train new employees on how to use the network, their PC's, etc., and answer a technical support hotline.

Part of my job was to do desk calls from time to time. This was where we couldn't resolve an issue on the phone, so we'd head to the person's desk so that we could show and explain at the same time, or just push them out of the way and take over. Frequently, it was inexplicable printer problems that would drive me up a wall. On the seventh floor, I was known as "Computer Lady." Others knew me as "the tall girl." It was a big company. Still is, as a matter of fact. I was lucky to get the job -- I'd applied for one of two positions and didn't get either of them. Then, a third person on the team was promoted elsewhere in the company, and I got the spot. Rarely, in my experience, do three out of five positions turn over so rapidly, especially on that team.

Anyhow, the first project I was put on when I started that job was the intranet project. We had a very small intranet at the time, and I was packed off to HTML class. I loved it. I worked late to learn JavaScript and signed up for a Java class. It was good times. I also liked the networking part of my job, though. I liked troubleshooting, as long as it didn't involve printers. In fact, were it not for printers sucking so much, I might have veered toward LAN administration than programming.

Thank you, printers of Standard Insurance.

No offense to my friends in IT jobs that require them to troubleshoot computers, networking, bad OS installations, etc., but I don't think I could handle that level of frustration (not to mention being on call). What I mean to say is, my laptop is about to go flying out the window if it won't successfully repair its installation of Win2K Server. Now.

About a month ago, I rebuilt my laptop. My plan was to get it all set up for work so I could use my laptop while I rebuild my desktop at work. The plan was working like a charm until I decided to follow someone's instructions for how to stop the laptop from freezing up periodically. Now the laptop is refusing to be repaired, though I'm continuing to work on it. It will hopefully work by the end of the day, if I can just figure out exactly how it wants to be repaired. Or, you know, it'll just go flying out the window and smash into a million little pieces on the street below. It's a nice image right now, as well as a good Plan B.

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Apparently, the GMail testing is going well because I'm getting 3 new invites a day. Let me know if you want one and I'll hook you up.

In the good news/bad news camp, Chris is back online, BUT he and Becky are in Eugene. Foo.

By the by, you should totally rent The Muppets. I watched the whole thing twice (once by myself, and once with Ransom and Joe). It's better with other people to laugh with. I love the big blue guy at the beginning and Stadtler and Waldorf and The Swedish Chef and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. So good! I had forgotten how exciting it is when Kermit sticks his head through the O in SHOW at the beginning to announce the show. Yay, Muppets! The others are in my queue.

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A co-worker and I were talking today about Google and why we trust them so much. Why is it that seeing targeted advertising in GMail doesn't disturb me? Clearly, something is looking at the words in my email -- shouldn't that bother me?

I think there are a couple of reasons. For one thing, they've explained that it's a machine and not a human that's looking through my email. Which makes sense -- no human could do (or would want) that job.

But, more fundamentally, it all comes down to the fact that I trust Google more than I trust, say MSN, Yahoo!, or even (dare I say it?) The Onion. Sure, The Onion doesn't quite fit here, but I'm making a point about trust, not so much about people who have free email clients. At any rate, why would I trust Google more? Simple. Go look at all those websites. Throw in weather.com and cnn.com. What's different?

It all comes down to simplicity. No popups. No Flash. No animated gifs. Not only that, but there's absolutely NO ADVERTISING on their home page. None. Do you know how many people a day go to Google? Don't you think they could get some fairly large sums for putting ads there? On top of that, their simple text ads in GMail or search results don't annoy me. I can easily ignore them or glance them over, but they don't get in my way. They're not flashing at me, distracting my eye so I can't concentrate on reading the content I'm after.

And that's all. That's all it takes to convince me that Google is better and more trustworthy. That Google can read my email and target advertising at me. Had Microsoft proposed the same thing, I'd say "No way, Bub. Uh-uh. Not on your life." Why? Because Microsoft gives the impression that they want to own me. Google gives the impression that they want to do cool things with computers, and do them well. And they do.

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Some things:

1. There sure are a lot of things you can do with olive oil. (Not to be confused with Olive Oyl of Popeye fame.)

2. If you want a GMail account, I have three invites to give and I'm too lazy to sell them on eBay. Let me know, and I can hook you up. Send an email to nerdygirl at this domain. GMail invites are all gone. Maybe next time.

3. I highly recommend the Mozilla Firefox browser. It rules. The Thunderbird mail client is pretty slick, as well.

4. We've only got 46 days left to work on our soapbox car. Eep! I think we have a really good idea for how the steering will work now, though, and we will likely start building the boat frame today.

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The games Theo (my cat) likes to play:

Freak Out: This is where Theo takes off running for no apparent reason. It usually begins with him looking rather startled and then running around as fast as he can. Frequently, it will begin when he's looking out the sliding glass door downstairs. He'll look a bit like a pointer with one paw against the glass, then suddenly push off of the glass run up the stairs, then back down, then up again. This game is also known as 300lb Cat because of the amount of noise he makes running up and down the stairs.

Awkwardly Placed Cat: This is mostly reserved for when I'm on the couch or sleeping. Theo likes to drape himself awkwardly over a leg or an arm or anywhere it is inconvenient. This game works best when my boyfriend is present, as he can wedge himself between us. Variations on Awkwardly Placed Cat include walking under my feet so he gets kicked in the head and curling up on my lap just as I'm about to get up.

Kill the Washrag: Back in December, Theo settled on a green washrag as his favorite toy. He dragged it out of the clean laundry basket and has enjoyed stalking it, tossing it about, and chasing it ever since.

The "Ooh, She's Making the Bed" Game: Theo sits on the floor and waits until I throw the sheet over the bed, then shake it so it will fall onto the bed neatly. While it is falling, he likes to jump up. The sheet then falls on him. He waits until I either tuck it around him or make him move and repeats with the top sheet, blanket, and comforter. Similarly, Theo enjoys trying to get underneath the table cloth and will occasionally attempt to dive underneath the rug near my back door.

Flop: Flop is more of a way of life than a game for Theo. In the same way Bob Dobbs has his "total slack" philosophy, Theo is all about total flop. Extreme flop, if you will. Normally, he will run in front of you, then look adorable as he flops over on his side with an utter disregard for anything resembling grace. Because he knows that you will pet him. It can't be helped.

Look At Me: Great for early mornings or when I'm attempting to watch TV and Theo feels he's not getting enough attention. This is where Theo gets on the table or another surface he knows he's not supposed to be and starts making noise. He'll chew on papers, swat objects to the ground, and do anything else to get my attention. It took me awhile to figure out that he likes it when I chase him down. Look At Me usually ends when I find the squirt bottle.

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In honor of Chris, a bulleted list of some things I noticed/thought about on my way to work this morning:

• Toilet papered houses are a sure sign that school's out for the summer.
• Why are there so many colorful plastic balls in the street?
• I wish I had my camera.
• My neice and nephew are cute.
• Bagels are yummy.
• What book should I read next?
• NOFX rock.
• I need new pants.

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My friend Erin has started selling things on eBay. Erin is one of my favorite people in the world because she's being smart, funny, creative, and a really really good person. One of the things I love the most about Erin is that she does things more than a little differently than your average Joe. For instance, Erin cannot bring herself to merely sell an African Dogon Cloth on eBay. No, she must point out its many other uses, such as fake water for a dramatic boat wreck scene in a puppet show (Swedish Chef not included). Too funny.

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Cherz gets major points for his creative fund raising efforts. You see, he's a little short on cash for Dragon Boat-related funds (lodging and race fees). So, like so many other young people who can't quite make ends meet, he's turned to stripping, Cherz style. (Or putting clothes back on, but nobody seems to want that... yet.)

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I'm waking up earlier these days. You'd think that would mean I'd have more time to update my blog, but really it just means I'm more tired all the time. You see, there's a big window in my bedroom. Huge. Most of it is covered with blinds, which are not altogether attractive. The piece at the top, however, remains uncovered and lets a whole lot of light in. Since the sun is rising earlier (and setting later), my internal clock is getting confused. Adding to the confusion is the fact that we will have a few days when it's dark and overcast all day, and then the sun will shine, you'll realize there actually ARE people in Portland (so many of them!) and my clock goes all haywire trying to readjust again. This also usually contributes to insomnia, but I seem to be tiring myself out quite thoroughly lately, so that hasn't been too much of an issue this spring.

Okay, so I'm rambling and I'm not even drunk. I think my point was originally going to be that I'm making curtains for my huge window and I'm very excited about them. I splurged on expensive fabric -- it's a thick, silky purple with dragonflies on it. It's purty.

Why am I telling you this? Because I can. Because I have nothing else to say. What would you rather I told you? (And no, I'm not wearing pink underwear -- unless these are the ones that got in the wash with my red sweater, in which case there are pink patches, but it was an accident...)

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